Who will write the democratic constitution?
We are fully occupied with the declaration of the academics for a whole week. If you take into consideration what top officials are saying, then this is Turkey’s number one issue for the moment.
Every day, statements are issued, the prosecutors are activated and police raid the offices and homes of these academics. There are detentions. A psychopath talks about taking a shower with the blood of the academics.
This thing, which has caused high winds, is, at the end of the day, only a declaration and nothing further. Personally, I do not agree with the text of the declaration; I have already declared that.
But if we are living in a democratic country, then we have to accept that everybody has the right to express their ideas.
It is clear what can be done when such a declaration is issued. If you like it, you can support it; if you do not like it, you can criticize it. As a matter of fact, as some academics are doing right now, you can get together and issue a counter-declaration.
But you should not demand anybody be punished for this reason. It is not acceptable that prosecutors are called to act and that police is sent to the offices and homes of these people.
Our reference in this matter could be European law.
Turkey amended its constitution and accepted European law. The judgements of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) are now accepted and take applied with precedence in Turkey. The Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Appeals and the local courts take ECHR judgments as references and rule accordingly.
The freedom of thought, the frame of which is drawn by the ECHR, even though it sounds surprising and shocking to us accepts the expression of all kinds of ideas as a fundamental human right.
One of the indispensable rules of being a “democrat” in our times is to accept the existence of this right and to respect it.
And we are talking about the writing of a new democratic constitution in this country. How this will happen, I cannot understand.
On one hand, we will not act like democrats, sending prosecutors and police for those who express an idea, and wanting to fire them from their schools. On the other hand, we will be democrats to make a democratic constitution.
This is an oxymoron.
To write a democratic constitution, one needs to be a democrat before anything else.
Who will make this constitution when democratic intolerance is at its utmost level?
Shall we need to import democrats from abroad?
Obvious intelligence weakness
According to news reports, those who aided and abetted the suicide bomber at Sultanahmet Square of Istanbul last week were in contact with the Syrian intelligence.
The bomber had spoken on the phone 32 times with a person who claimed to be in connection with Syria’s intelligence body. He exchanged messages on WhatsApp.
It is also claimed in news reports that those who lived in the same apartment with the suicide bomber and who simultaneously went to register at the refugee administration were also in contact with the Syrian intelligence member who is under detention now.
It is among news reports, but this is not an ordinary claim. The people in question have been arrested for this reason. I guess it is not a secret that the Syrian intelligence service would want to organize a plot against Turkey.
Let us wrap it up: A migrant came from Syria, from an area where the ISIL is dominant. He met up with other migrants like himself and rented a house. He registered.
All of these people were in contact with a person on active duty in Syrian intelligence.
What I wonder is this: Wasn’t the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) monitoring this person from Syrian intelligence? Officials are saying that there was no intelligence weakness or failure but can there be a bigger weakness than this one?
If Syrian intelligence is able to swarm, act, organize and plan acts in Turkey, then what is the MİT doing?
